Waltham is trying to be conversational, but failing and I cannot muster enough interest in sediment to continue. I was expecting a lot more about space and less about Earth's climate and geology. Stopped in Chapter 7. ( )

For many years, the prevailing scientific trend has been to describe Earth as a fairly "ordinary" or "common" type of planet and to extrapolate that many planets exist that are very similar to Earth and probably support abundant life, as Earth does. Waltham's book makes the argument that Earth is actually "exceptional" in that several physical factors have made Earth a "lucky" planet that supports abundant life while many fairly similar planets differ in some minor but important way. I don't particularly care how scientists settle this question, but Waltham's book is fascinating to the non-scientist mainly because he clearly and thoroughly takes the reader through the cosmological discoveries of the last 50 years that have radically changed the scientific view of the cosmos and the earth. I was engaged from beginning to end. As a non-scientist without particular gifts in math or physics, I know I missed some of Waltham's finer points, but still I was able to learn all kinds of fascinating new things. A great read!
( )